2013 Food & Agriculture Feature Stories

The latest updates

Dried flowers of the Sanqi plant
Greenpeace China’s campaign to push one of China’s biggest retailers to purge pesticides triggered food safety reform across the whole of Shanghai. Now we’re fighting to take it nationwide. ...

There is something special about the soil and the air of the north eastern plain. On the boundary of inhospitable wilderness – the Mongolian steppes and the frozen forests of Siberia – yet one of the most fertile stretches of land in...

Our broken food system
We live in an era of broken food production. Most of us have no idea where our food comes from, who plants the crops or what chemicals are involved in the process. The modern world’s food production system is...

Monsanto and their ‘Round Up’ formula are infamous. Producers of Agent Orange, Monsanto, have long claimed that their globally used weed killer is harmless (even safe enough to drink ).
But scientists and citizens around the world...

The following is an excerpt from our report 'Chinese Herbs: Elixir of Health or Pesticide Cocktail?', which can be read in full here .
The so-called "Green Revolution" that William Gaud, Former Director of the US Agency for...

Last month the Chinese province of Sichuan was victim to a prolonged and devastating rainstorm. According to online news outlets, the floods killed at least 68 people, with 179 missing and over three million people affected. In...

Whenever beekeepers run into Uncle Lee, they tend to bring up pesticides and ask when he's planning to spray. That's because Uncle Lee's honeysuckle field is located right next to a bee farm, and bees are highly sensitive to pesticides. As the...

It's a common story across China: the young people have jobs or do business in the cities, leaving the elderly to tend to the village farms. Auntie Ye is illiterate, like so many of the honeysuckle growing farmers in the area. When asked how to...

Xiaogui belongs to the Hmong people, and already has seven or eight years experience in planting the herb Sanqi. Like so many people in his village, both him and his sister's sole income is dependent on farming, and their children often pitch in...

Last month China's Department of Agriculture approved three biosafety certificates for soybean imports. Their decision triggered a heated debate among the Chinese public and media.
China first approved the import of genetically...